Lenovo North America President Talks Channel Strategy, PC Opportunities

Lenovo is committed to maintaining a business strategy in which 90 percent of sales go through channel partners, said Christian Teismann, the interim president for Lenovo North America.

"That will not change," Teismann told CRN this week at Lenovo's North American headquarters in Morrisville, N.C. "We will grow with the channel, and we are investing into the channel in terms of joint capabilities to bring our existing products and new products to the market."

Teismann, who also heads the Enterprise Business Segment for Lenovo's PCs and smart devices division, said there should be no slowdown in PC opportunities for partners—despite the often-predicted demise of the PC.

"We believe PCs will grow in the future," he said.

In the future, Lenovo "will bring a lot of new products to the market first in North America," he said, citing the Yoga convertible product lineup as a North America-created category "that we are deeply committed to."

Teismann also discussed the evolution of the PC into "smart office" products, such as Lenovo's forthcoming ThinkSmart Hub 500.

Another major opportunity for partners is around Lenovo's workstation products such as the ThinkStation P320 Tiny, according to Teismann.

"North America is the biggest workstation market. It is the market where we rolled out our smart office solution the first. And we also believe that North America is leading in terms of adapting new technologies around PC," Teismann said. "If you look into future opportunities like augmented reality, virtual reality implementations, IoT—North America is the leading market. And the North America channel is instrumental for us to bring these categories to market."